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Temporal paradoxes do not matter. They do not effect what does exist and what does not. The whole "paradox" issue seems to stem from people thinking that something needs a past in order to exist. A past is not necessary. Real World Example: The Universe only goes back around 13.7 billion years. It has no past beyond that (time itself does not go back beyond that). Therefore, there is no reason to believe that a character would stop existing just because their past got cut off.

As to Mikuru's explaination that the time travelers could not go back any farther in time. The way she puts it makes it sound like this happened three years ago in her time frame as well as in Kyon's time. Does this mean that Haruhi did something that effected something more than 5 dimensions at the same time? She caused some sort of break in space-tame that the aliens noticed, "created" the esper's powers, and blocked time travel. However Mikuru's way of saying it suggests that they use to travel farther back in time and that something happened to change it, rather than they ran into a brick wall in time while trying to go farther and farther back. It also suggests that it happened in real time for both Kyon's time and Mikuru's time. However if this break were across 5 dimensions, it would have hit everyone at the same "time" and thus always been in effect. Could Haruhi have caused something to happen that effected space-time in a way so that it only effected the time travelers from a specific time and after? And yet if they attempted to move back in time to use a machine/device that was of an older type to get around the block it would not work for them? Nor would they be able to send back someone from an earlier time to investigate even if those people could go back more than the Haruhi timequake?

Since there is now evidence of sliders getting involved, that would mean that Haruhi may effect things on an even greater dimensional level, up to 6 or 7 dimensions now if I remember correctly. However there seems to be a limit, if Endless Eight is a clue. Yuki's memory at least remains intact over each loop, so it must exist outside of at least the 4 dimensions, also she can sync to herself so it exists outside of the 5 dimensions. We don't know yet what (if anything) Haruhi has been able to do to the slider's universe, so we can't qualify if Yuki's memory exists beyond the 6th dimension.

There are several ways I can see to take that question: "What evidence is there;" "Koizumi-style;" and "What about before?"

Evidence: Big Bang. The equations that work out in support of the universe as we know it being ~13.7 billion years old. The observed rate of movement of matter in the universe indicating it was all at the same place around 13.7 billion years ago.

Koizumi-style "everything was made five minutes ago, even contradicting evidence" argument: This argument cannot be proven either way, and is meaningless.

Before: Alright, there is a chance that our universe had a cause, and was created by an event in an older universe. That would put existence at older than 13.7 billion years, but doesn't defeat the essence of the argument. If there exist(s/ed) a universe that created ours, then the question becomes where that universe came from. Ask this question enough and you'll either come to a source that came out of nothing, of find that at some point the universes loop around. Either way, existence would be acausal.

What impact any of this has on the Haruhi-universe is questionable, as there is nothing forcing Tanigawa to use a sensible system of time-travel. The point, however, is that it is perfectly possible for something to exist without having a history to back it up, and thus paradoxes are not important.

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Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Causality still matters for everyone except Haruhi.

Nothing anyone but Haruhi (or someone using her powers) does can affect or alter the past.

You seem to be confusing causality with a predetermined future. They are not the same. There are two acausal events that have occurred in the series so far, and only one of them directly involved Haruhi: The Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody incident and when Kyon and Mikuru learned of the shape of Mikuru's mole.

Both of the aforementioned events are completely acausal, but both of them were absolutely necessary for the future from which Mikuru came. Acausality and a predetermined future are compatible, its just that acausal events cannot be predicted before they occur.

If you don't wish to hurt your brain thinking about it, may I attempt to summerize?

From what I understand, you're suggesting that Koizumi's powers were granted by Haruhi, but Aliens and Time Travelers existed without her enabling them. All Haruhi did was cut off timetravel to any era before her powers.

Why would she do that? Why else but to get Time Travelers to come to her? What else would they do except attempt to discover why they can't move further back from that point?

And all Haruhi had to do was EXIST in order to attract alien attention.

Both of the aforementioned events are completely acausal, but both of them were absolutely necessary for the future from which Mikuru came. Acausality and a predetermined future are compatible, its just that acausal events cannot be predicted before they occur.

There are several ways I can see to take that question: "What evidence is there;" "Koizumi-style;" and "What about before?"

Evidence: Big Bang. The equations that work out in support of the universe as we know it being ~13.7 billion years old. The observed rate of movement of matter in the universe indicating it was all at the same place around 13.7 billion years ago.

And what have happened to the eternal looping theory? That the universe is exploding, expanding, contracting and them exploding/expanding/contrcting over and over again? It could be the first time (so, no past past then) but it could not. Besides, who said the the Big Bang (if it exist) is the begining of everything?

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Koizumi-style "everything was made five minutes ago, even contradicting evidence" argument: This argument cannot be proven either way, and is meaningless.

No, it is not. It can't be provem, right. But it is enogh to be a possibility. So any other option is also a possibility, but never a certain (nothing is a certain, BTW).

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Before: Alright, there is a chance that our universe had a cause, and was created by an event in an older universe. That would put existence at older than 13.7 billion years, but doesn't defeat the essence of the argument. If there exist(s/ed) a universe that created ours, then the question becomes where that universe came from. Ask this question enough and you'll either come to a source that came out of nothing, of find that at some point the universes loop around. Either way, existence would be acausal.

Yeah, I agree.

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What impact any of this has on the Haruhi-universe is questionable, as there is nothing forcing Tanigawa to use a sensible system of time-travel. The point, however, is that it is perfectly possible for something to exist without having a history to back it up, and thus paradoxes are not important.

Ah, so it is this what Yuki means on Bamboo's Leaf? Maybe it is not, but it fits well. Anyway, I aways thinks that "history backing up" kinda sily.

No problem. I spend a lot of time thinking about time travel and enjoy sharing my thoughts on the subject. Your post allowed me to clear things up for others who might have taken issue with what I said but not posted for some reason.

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Originally Posted by Heatth

And what have happened to the eternal looping theory? That the universe is exploding, expanding, contracting and them exploding/expanding/contrcting over and over again? It could be the first time (so, no past past then) but it could not. Besides, who said the the Big Bang (if it exist) is the begining of everything?

1. Current evidence suggests that the expansion of the universe is accelerating due to dark energy, which would result in a Big Rip rather than a Big Crunch.
2. The cycling of universes you describe is close enough to the third possibility that it falls into the same category, with the same solution.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Heatth

No, it is not. It can't be provem, right. But it is enogh to be a possibility. So any other option is also a possibility, but never a certain (nothing is a certain, BTW).

Let me try to rephrase myself. The "everything was created 5 minutes ago, even the contradictory evidence" theory is not testable to a sufficient extent that results contradicting it could not be handwaved away. This means that no actionable knowledge can be drawn from considering the possibility. Thus, entertaining it is a waste of time and energy.

If you can think of an example of actionable knowledge that could be drawn from considering it, I'd be interested to hear it. Due to my own conclusions about this possibility I haven't spent as much time considering it as I have the others.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Heatth

Ah, so it is this what Yuki means on Bamboo's Leaf? Maybe it is not, but it fits well. Anyway, I aways thinks that "history backing up" kinda sily.

I dunno. It's been a while since I read BLR and I didn't watch the subs for it, either.

1. Current evidence suggests that the expansion of the universe is accelerating due to dark energy, which would result in a Big Rip rather than a Big Crunch.
2. The cycling of universes you describe is close enough to the third possibility that it falls into the same category, with the same solution.

1. Realy? Well, whatever It doesn't help in the discussion (thanks for the info)
2.I know. I have some difficultys reading long complex english texts. So I was reading and replying one "block" by time. Sorry.

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Let me try to rephrase myself. The "everything was created 5 minutes ago, even the contradictory evidence" theory is not testable to a sufficient extent that results contradicting it could not be handwaved away. This means that no actionable knowledge can be drawn from considering the possibility. Thus, entertaining it is a waste of time and energy.

I I didn't understand the undelined text. Blame my poor english skils .
Anyway you meant that since it can not be proven, it is pointless debate about it right? I agree. Just pointing that it is not (totally) meaningless.

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I dunno. It's been a while since I read BLR and I didn't watch the subs for it, either.

The subs diverge a lot... Baka-tsuki says:

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"As there is no conclusion to the paradox theory, there is no way to prove that there is no paradox."

As an "explanation" to the events of that Tanabata. I was amused that your words fit pretty well here.

By the way, I didn't really think about it before, but I guess Mikuru's mole is a closed time loop; she only knew about it because Kyon pointed it out, and Kyon only knew about it because future Mikuru pointed it out. So where did the original information come from?

Finally, someone willing to talk about the nature of information, energy and matter.
Alright. This whole problem of time travel is causing the discussion to go in the direction of causality and nature of information. Unfortunately, this has its firm feet in physics, and that is going give Reckoner loathing over the post-Einstein/Bohr world'o physics.

So, what is information?

To paraphrase wikipedia, Physical information is about information that is contained within a given system, which the part of the physical universe that we wish to look into.

Information is loosely defined as what we can use to tell one thing apart from another. It is what we can pick out specifically, and a complete description of this 'thing', not always using words even. We can call that the sum of information is basically the ideal form of the 'thing' in question.

In Haruhi context, the sum of all information regarding data entity will be the perfect form a given data entity. One does not use any given language for a description.

In physics, the complete sum of all that information within a given system is what we called 'true state' of that system. The true state of a data entity would be the complete sum of all the information pertaining to 'it'. This true state, for all intent and purpose, would have to exist somehow, whether if it is tangible or if you can 'understand' it or not.

So, the original information about Mikuru's mole has nothing to do with the casualty of recognizing it, since physical information does not depend on anyone realizing its existence nor in what it's all about.

In the substomic quantum world, there exists a 'ton' more information than what we see in the macroscopic world. In the classical world, only a fine selection of that 'information' which exists at quantum level becomes evident to us, and those are observable, objective reality of 'things'.

Think of the quantum information as subjective possibilities and the macroscopic world information as objective reality. The subjective nature comes, according to Uncertainty principle, by that the more you know of all the possible choices, the less you know what you will actually get at any given point in time.

In Haruhi example, the more choice in clothing items you know exists for swimwear, the less certain you can be about which one of these choices will pop up during a given iteration of the endless Eight iteration. A Reality would be that in iteration 15,498, Haruhi is wearing a red tankini for her swimsuit, but then there would be no choice anymore in that given iteration 15,498... as what happened is set in stone.

The total amount of information that can possibly exist is actually countable. This is measured in heat unit of joules per kelvin typically... Just note that you can use some formula to count information in some kind of heat energy unit, as you have more than 1 formula, depending on what you're after.

Wikipedia kindly provided that for a system S, defined abstractly in such a way that it has N distinguishable states (orthogonal quantum states) that are consistent with its description, the amount of information I(S) contained in the system's state can be said to be log(N).

So, for any given Endless Eight cycle, there exists 6 different variations of parttime work, and so the I(E8') would equal to log (6) of energy as information regarding all parttime work variation.

And... if A has N distinguishable states (I(A) = log(N) information content) and an independent subsystem B has M distinguishable states (I(B) = log(M) information content), then the concatenated system has NM distinguishable states and an information content I(AB) = log(NM) = log(N) + log(M) = I(A) + I(B).

2 pages of book contain 2x the information as does 1 page, and in 15,513 loops, there exists 15,513Log(6) joule per kelvin of energy worth in information. Fun isn't it?

Recall that all of this is measured in some thermal unit? Well guess what... Entropy just the gibberish amount of energy that we know it's information, but we can't make sense of it. We know how much of it there is, we even know where they are, but it makes no sense. The classical entropy is defined as "a thermodynamic quantity representing the amount of energy in a system that is no longer available for doing mechanical work", which is heat energy that doesn't go into moving things at all... some do argue that information entropy really isn't all like that, but just note that information is a form of heat energy.

Entropy of information would be like you being handed the moonrune version of Haruhi. You know how many characters and how many pages there are, but you can't make sense of it.

Ok, so what's the issue with this? Well for one, it becomes alarming that information,physical information, isn't tied down with... time.

The issue lies with the solution to black hole information paradox, the conservation of energy and mass in our universe (and information)... and eventually, the matter of casualty in nature. (I am going to build from here)

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It would be enough for the depressing things in life to only exist in reality.
It is because that I think the birth of a story... is from people dreaming of a happy ending. ~Misaka Shiori

I I didn't understand the undelined text. Blame my poor english skils .
Anyway you meant that since it can not be proven, it is pointless debate about it right? I agree. Just pointing that it is not (totally) meaningless.

Ah, sorry, I forgot that English isn't your native language. The meaning of the underlined part was that no evidence against that theory would ever be good enough to satisfy a supporter of the theory.

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Originally Posted by Heatth

Well, I guess we are just agreeing by now.

That appears to be the case.

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Originally Posted by CrowKenobi

I think that we're getting waaaaayyyy into ontology territory here...

Yeah. It might be better for us to take this discussion there.

@panzerfan: I'm going to look at that post of yours again after I get some sleep. Not ignoring it.

Every time time travel even remotely comes up, this happens... Every time Slider-tan is mentioned, this happens... Every time Sasaki is brought up, it turns into a "nature of Haruhi's powers" discussion, which invariably degenerates via mention of 3ya to a time travel discussion, or via mention of the Yukiverse to a AU discussion, and this happens...

The Ontology thread is the Borg of this forum. All topics will be assimilated. It will add their distinctiveness to its own. Resistance is futile... ^_^

Since there is now evidence of sliders getting involved, that would mean that Haruhi may effect things on an even greater dimensional level, up to 6 or 7 dimensions now if I remember correctly. However there seems to be a limit, if Endless Eight is a clue. Yuki's memory at least remains intact over each loop, so it must exist outside of at least the 4 dimensions, also she can sync to herself so it exists outside of the 5 dimensions. We don't know yet what (if anything) Haruhi has been able to do to the slider's universe, so we can't qualify if Yuki's memory exists beyond the 6th dimension.

kool so the possibility that Yuki can Sync with alternate dimensions of herself is possible?

Well she did ban herself from Sync-ing with past & future versions of herself but not alternate dimensions of herself... maybe it'll happen when Slider Kyon visit Yuki lol... can't wait lol.

My short answer is that, given physical information is not governed by time, the transmission of information doesn't have to flow with the arrow of time.

In quantum mechanics, some incredible happens that makes one even question why it seems that faster than light transmission of information can occur. We have to go into ontology as we explore how all of this is connected unfortunately.

__________________

It would be enough for the depressing things in life to only exist in reality.
It is because that I think the birth of a story... is from people dreaming of a happy ending. ~Misaka Shiori

I dunno how far Haruhi's powers reach but in term of time passed from Yuki's Point of view, 594 years have passed so that's more then enough time for Haruhi's theory that your wish should come true within 16 or 25 years lol.

Yes, they came true. During interations 416 and 650. However, none of the SOS Brigade will remember them, except Yuki. In fact, even during those interations, Mikuru failed to notice how much better her cooking and sewing were.

Interation 650 was interesting, since Kyon actually got a house with a yard. This, of course, was then turned into the host for the SOS Brigade's Dog Wash fundraiser.

I dunno how far Haruhi's powers reach but in term of time passed from Yuki's Point of view, 594 years have passed so that's more then enough time for Haruhi's theory that your wish should come true within 16 or 25 years lol.

Eh... not exactly. The time between the beginning of August 1st and the beginning of September 1st is still 31 days. The last two weeks just repeated thousands of times.

*e* Or what Takari said. I like that one better.

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